Point-to-point digital microwave radios are playing a growing important role in the backhaul network of today's 4G and LTE wireless communications systems. To cope with the increasing throughput demands of these systems, several technical enhancements have been introduced in recent years to the design of microwave radios. These include the adoption of higher M-ary QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) modulations beyond the traditional 256 QAM level to levels such as 1024/2048/4096 QAM. The spectral efficiency, and therefore, the channel capacity is incrementally increased with these new modulations. One other technique is the use of orthogonal polarizations on the same radio channel to double its capacity. However, along with these new enhancements are the challenges of reduced system gain, susceptibility to propagation fadings and interferences, especially co-channel interference in the dual polar systems. In addition to these performance-driven enhancements, modern microwave radios are also expected to operate at reduced power consumptions with a smaller form-factor. The inventions described herein address these requirements with a new dual compact all-outdoor radio with several technical and operational benefits.